


imperative

by kalypsobean



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:49:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future-fic. Peony knows Jade rather well, but events might show him that Jade has learned some things too, at least, if Jade lets his guard down long enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	imperative

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynndyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/gifts).



The problem, Peony concludes, isn't that Jade doesn't care, or that he doesn't allow himself to care; it's that he cares and doesn't allow himself to show it. It gets held back and twisted up until Jade can't hide it any more and it comes out in a way that is either destructive or sarcastic, and people who don't know how Jade is just can't understand that.

 

Peony has a theory that people see Jade as some kind of powerful artesman, perhaps because of his rank or because his is the name that goes with most of the booklore. They even call him the Necromancer, as if discovering one small way to use artes somehow means that he can control the dead. Jade doesn't see himself like that, and if Peony didn't know better, he'd suspect Jade was punishing himself for something. However, Peony does know better - whatever guilt Jade still carries, hidden away in there, it doesn't affect him in a way that would make him act any differently. The truth is far simpler, and a thing that makes Peony sad, if he lets himself think about it for too long, for his part in it. Jade has never had people around who were as smart as him, or who understood him; the only ones that did both ended up leaving, in one fashion or another, and the ones who should have either chose not to, or could not. Peony has always tried, since his gift is being able to read people, to know them from what little of themselves they show him, but he could only ever go so far. 

He thinks that he's one of the only people around whom Jade lets his guard down, but the change is so small that most of the time, he's left wondering whether he imagined it - a half-smile, a joke which didn't cut, a slight sag of the shoulders. 

Of course, if Jade knew how to let people in, he wouldn't have to wonder.

 

It all happens so suddenly one day; one day which was, in almost all ways, no different to any other until that moment. Peony has almost grown used to the trappings of his role, and of being in public with everyone's attention on him. He still gets nervous, sometimes, though that isn't the right word; anticipating being in public, where people can reach out to him and he can speak to them, makes his heart race and sometimes his hands shake, but not from worry or anxiety. Today isn't one of those days, though; he's calm as he walks out of the palace, though he can't say the same for Jade, who is inscrutable as always, even the small tells known to Peony just because he's known Jade for so long seem to be tamped down, as if Jade is tense and alert. 

It happens so fast that Peony barely has time to flash back to the day in the mansion, or to consider that this happens often enough that they should have better precautions. Someone rushes from a hiding spot, somewhere off to the left of the door, and a sword catches the sunlight and glints, blinding him from anything other than the shape of the hilt in the would-be assassin's hand. The shadow is abruptly bigger, making Peony blink several times until he can see what's happening, though he's already being pulled away. It makes more sense when the soldiers have him inside and he's looking out through a window, sheltered from the violence. The assassin relied purely on force, as if he couldn't risk the widescale damage from artes, and now that he's out of the way Jade is reaching out, his spear beginning to shimmer as the arte is drawn out and focused, then unleashed.

 

Peony remembers the chaos and hustle from the last time, but then it was different; it wasn't in his own home, and there were other friends around to consider. This time, there is only Jade. The soldiers take the assassin away; Peony may never know his name, though he would dispense justice personally if it were still his choice. 

That is one of the things which changed, when they took away the constraints of a preordained future.

Jade is wounded; not seriously, Peony thinks, but enough. They are older now, of course, so Jade doesn't fight Peony as he half-carries Jade up to his rooms and sits him on the bed. What Peony doesn't know about healing would fill a book, of course, but this he feels sure of; he rips bandages from cloth and winds them around the worst of the cuts, such as they are. It is not like Jade to have his defences so low, but the damage will heal, and that is something Peony can hold on to.

"I'm fine, you know," Jade says, but only after Peony has bound all the wounds he can see; only after Peony has watched the first bandage he tied turn from white to pink, with a heart of red, like his own.

"Of course you are," Peony says. "And taking care of people in Malkuth is mine."

Jade looks at him, through hair that falls over his eyes and glasses, as if he would say something else but there is something holding him back; it is also rare for Jade not to speak his mind, but today has suddenly become quite an unusual day, and Peony expects Jade to make up for his silence another day, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps not. It has not gone unnoticed that Jade's aching joints are less of a lie than they used to be, after all; whether it is truly age or whether there is damage that lies deeper, from another time, Jade will never tell.

Peony will take what he can get, especially since it involves helping Jade lie down when his eyes close, as if he is too tired to hold himself up but would not dare show weakness even in front of someone who has seen him in all his incarnations and knows the effort he has made to learn and grow beyond them. 

He ends up sleeping next to Jade, until Guy comes to find him, and he has to go back to living in a world where his duty is to everyone before any single person, even the ones who matter the most to him in the world. 

Guy, perhaps for the only time in his life, seems to understand that Peony doesn't want to discuss anything, and is both efficient and silent.

 

The next day begins in almost the same way, though Peony can see Jade standing at the window, looking out over the garden, and the rappigs are all eating from their bowls. Peony wonders if Jade fed them, or if someone else had done it, knowing after the last time that eventually, Peony would need time away from his role to process that he'd almost been killed, again.

"Thank you," he says to Jade. He expects something cool, perhaps even a denial, for that would be Jade's way, to pretend it hadn't happened at all. Instead, Jade turns, and for a moment almost appears as if he is half in the shadows.

"I understand things better, now." Jade says it slowly, and Peony wonders if it is because Jade is unsure of what he's saying, or whether he merely can't believe he's saying it. "I was not prepared for you to die."

Peony thinks on that, for such a moment of honesty from Jade, of all people, shouldn't be taken lightly. Jade once claimed not to understand death, but after everything, Peony would have a harder time accepting that Jade had not learnt to understand absence, at the very least.

He decides on levity, after allowing Jade the chance to say anything more. There is nothing but the sound of rappigs eating and the breeze through the window. 

"I wasn't ready for me to die, either, so... thank you," he says. Jade doesn't smile, but he relaxes, slightly enough that Peony only sees it because he was looking for it. 

Before Jade leaves, he lets Peony check the bandages. The bleeding has stopped, and all but the very worst, a deep slash to the upper left arm, which Peony covers with a new bandage, have begun to heal. Jade's skin is cool to the touch, even near the very edge of the wound, and Peony traces it before he lets Jade's arm go. The bleeding doesn't begin again, and Jade does not wince at the pressure. "You should put some salve on it," he says. He doesn't have any, of course, but Jade would. 

Jade slips through the secret passage and is gone without another word, barely even another breath. The rappigs have finished their breakfast and Peony picks one up as they flock around him. It is Jade, of course, and he holds onto this Jade the way he couldn't before.

 

Days later, when Guy brings up the swordsman, and the matter of a trial, Peony looks at Jade, who is standing against the wall with his hands behind his back, even though it's his office and he could lay claim to the chair that Guy has so casually taken over. There is no reaction, and there has been no hint of gingerness in anything Jade has done since he left Peony's room that day. Guy is rambling on, and Peony is content to listen, for he knows that word has spread, and without the Score to reassure people of the future of their Empire, an example has to be made, however heavily the cost weighs.

"Nothing of the sort," Jade says, wearily. Peony quickly focuses back on Guy, wondering when the words began to run together. "I imagine it would delight the people to hear of a heroic duel between myself and this miscreant, however I merely disarmed him and the guards did the rest." 

"That's enough for now," Peony says, quickly, before Guy can argue the point. "You have other things to do," he says to Guy, "and there will be plenty of witnesses." Guy grumbles, but then a soldier arrives with a message for Jade, and the moment passes before anyone can relieve the awkwardness. There will be witnesses, though, and the people know enough of Jade to believe them. 

He looks back at Jade before he follows Guy out of the room; his uniform has no trace of being torn, but Peony catches him rubbing his left arm.

He sneaks into town and finds a physician and has salve sent to Jade, knowing that Jade will never acknowledge it.


End file.
